The JRockit code base and the HotSpot virtual machine from Sun Microsystems (now Oracle) are currently being integrated, with the target of releasing a JVM with a combined code base around the release date of Java Development kit(JDK) 8.

JRockit was made free and publicly available in May 2011.

Many JREclass files distributed with JRockit exactly replicate those distributed with HotSpot. JRockit overrides class files which relate closely to the JVM, therefore retaining API compatibility while enhancing the performance (processing speed) of the JVM.

Oracle claims[5] that using JRockit can give significant performance gains. Server benchmarks on earlier Java Virtual Machines tend to show that server performance of HotSpot was better, but that JRockit had a much better scalability.[6]

JRockit 5.0 R26 bundled a set of tools called JRockit Mission Control.[7]
The tools include:

an interactive Management Console, which visualizes garbage-collection and other performance statistics

a runtime performance profiling tool called Runtime Analyzer

a memory-analysis tool called Memory Leak Detector

From release R27.3[8] the tools suite also includes a latency analyzer that graphically visualizes when threads stall due to synchronization, file/network I/O, memory allocation and garbage collection pauses.

^"JRockit is Now Free (and Other Java License Updates)". Oracle Corporation. 2011-05-18. Archived from the original on 2011-05-21. Retrieved 2011-05-22. Since we are converging the JVMs technically it makes sense to treat them as a single "product" with two different incarnations/implementations. Second, by making JRockit free we hope to get more feedback on any regressions in the converged JVM vs current JRockit, which will help our convergence project.

^"The Volano Report, May 2003". volano.org. 2003-05-30. Retrieved 2011-05-22. At 10,000 connections, BEA JRockit 3.1 on Windows has 14 times the throughput of any other Java platform—by far, the best network scalability I have ever tested. While other Java vendors waited for better threading support in the operating system or new programming interfaces for the application, the JRockit team solved the Java threads problem right where it originated. The results are remarkable, and BEA made a wise purchase.